荒腔人曲

孔千向来以他极具辨识度的造型语言为人所熟知。在天津美术学院近四十年的教学生涯，以及他自觉萌发并不断加以培植的历史视野和问题意识，都无疑奠定了他兼具厚度与广度的创作框架和格局。与此同时，孔千身上实实在在地具有着极其复杂的双重性与多面性：一方面他既来自学院，承袭正统体系的美学教育，是不折不扣的精英学者；另一方面，他深受中国民间文化的滋养，独爱野生的鲜活与市井的放浪形骸。后者作为他创作者的人格底色，随着时间的推移愈加源源不断地渗透到作品的深处。孔千异常旺盛的创作生命力，和他极端个人化、特殊化的造型趣味与叙事手段，将他造就为独具异禀的绘画鬼才，更使得他成为中国当代艺术不可多得且弥足珍贵的个案范本。正如孔千用“杂糅”概括他的绘画行为，此次展览主题“荒腔人曲”可被看作亦中亦西的拼贴。“荒腔”是源自中国戏曲的语汇，所谓荒腔走板，即不和板眼的唱腔，暗合了孔千一向跳脱、疏狂的创作特质。以个体觉醒为锚，完成对既定框架与标准的逃逸，从而实现他另辟蹊径的艺术追求。“人曲”

则是作为后世对十四世纪意大利作家乔万尼·薄伽丘所著短篇小说集《十日谈》的称谓，用以将这一欧洲文学史上第一部现实主义巨著与同时代但丁所作《神曲》相比拟。《十日谈》讲述了佛罗伦萨瘟疫肆虐之际，十名男女在避难的十天里所汇集的一百个故事。异曲同工的是，孔千正是以他独有的腔调，用绵延不绝的画面篇幅，去记述世情、浮绘众生。此次展览是对孔千过去五年创作的梳理与汇合，所呈现的一百余件尺幅不等的绘画作品自成章节、首尾相接。置于展厅尽头的名为《亥末子初》的十米长卷，既是这五年来创作的引子，亦为其谱下终曲。作为孔千近年来的集大成之作，它极具代表性地映照了古今历史段落的循环往复，重叠并错置了无数个魔幻、奇诡、荒诞的时刻。在现实世界与神话故事无数次接壤的绘画深处，是孔千面向时代发出的最真实的声音。孔千：荒腔人曲

Kong Qian: Outrageous Comedy of Humanity Kong Qian has established a reputation for his distinctive stylistic language. His teaching career spanning nearly forty years at Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, as well as the historical vision and awareness of issues that he has consciously developed and continues to cultivate, have undoubtedly established his creative structure and scope of perception, both in terms of depth and breadth. Meanwhile, Kong Qian indeed manifests an extremely complex duality and diversity: on the one hand, he comes from an institutional background, following the traditional system of aesthetics education to become an elite academic, while on the other hand, he is profoundly nourished by Chinese folk culture, with an unremitting fondness for the liveliness of the untamed and the unrestrained nature of mundane life. The latter, serving as the essence of his creative identity, continuously saturates into the heart of his works with the passage of time. Kong’s exceptionally exuberant creative force, highly distinctive and specific stylistic preferences, and narrative approaches have fostered him into a gifted and extraordinary painting maverick, moreover, a unique and treasured paradigm of contemporary Chinese art. Similar to Kong Qian’s encapsulation of his painting practice in the term záróu, referring to the action of mixing, the title of this exhibition, “Outrageous Comedy of Humanity”, suggests a collage of both the Eastern and Western. The term in the Chinese title huāngqiāng, to deviate from the script and sing out of tune, is derived from Chinese opera and alludes to Kong’s unorthodox and unrestrained creative manner. Anchored by the individual awakening, he achieved his escape from the established construct and standards, thus fulfilling his artistic pursuit of an alternative route. Rénqǔ in the Chinese title refers to The Decameron, a collection of short stories written by the fourteenth-century Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio, paralleling this first realist masterpiece in European literature to the Divine Comedy written by his contemporary, Dante. The Decameron recounts a hundred stories of ten men and women taking refuge in Florence for ten days during the ravages of the plague. Likewise, Kong Qian, in his inimitable tune, chronicles the realities of the world and depicts living beings in an endless stretch of paintings. This show serves as a review and collection of Kong Qian’s creations over the past five years, presenting more than a hundred paintings of various scales that divide into distinct chapters that are firmly connected. The ten-metre-long scroll entitled hàimò zǐchū, installed at the end of the exhibition space, is both the introduction and the finale of these five years of practice. A masterpiece of Kong over recent years, it is a significant reflection of the cyclical recurrence of ancient and modern history, overlapping and misplacing countless moments of mystery, oddity, and absurdity. In the depth of the painting, where reality meets mythological stories countless times, lies Kong Qian’s most genuine voice confronting his time.